Briefly

Born in Ohio and raised in Southern California since the age of three. Joined the Army six months out of high school. Stationed in Esslingen/Stuttgart Germany for two and a half years as a UH1H helicopter mechanic. When I got out, started to work on my Airframe and Power Plant license to become a aircraft mechanic. Worked at a small private airport for a few years before I found I wanted to do something else.

Worked for a temp agency for about a year and probably had 8 different jobs during this time. I could try different jobs, see if anything clicked. About this time, my friend that I grew up with started designing peripheral cards for the Apple computers that were coming out. I started designing PCB layouts by hand, using Mylar and tape, making them 10X normal size. We went to a trade show and saw AutoCad 2.5 being used to do layouts. We bought AutoCad and taught ourselves how to use it. When the Apple IIGS came out you had to have an external hard drive for it. We designed and sold the first internal hard drive that replaced the power supply inside. By using a smaller, more powerful power supply, and a new hard drive, it fit into the same footprint as the old power supply. This was the start of my design career.